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Tyson Hoggan

Ms. Amanda Tibbitts

Language Arts 12

8 March 2019

Entrepreneurship

People dream of making a career out of something they love. It is important to find out

what you’re interested in and what you’re good at early in high school. These will factor what

type of career field you want to go in. Choosing a career can be quite overwhelming because it

is what you will do for the rest of your life and it impacts your future spouse and family.

I’ve always been interested in owning my own business. It won’t be easy and it’s going

to be hard getting to where I want to be. I see all these influential entrepreneurs living in luxury

and doing what they love. It is overwhelming how hard it is to become an entrepreneur, but I am

ready for the challenge and my goal is to go to college and get a degree in business management

to help me along the way.

In the article, ‘Billionaire University’, Sean Parker, an american entrepreneur with a net

worth of over 2.7 billion, thinks a new kind of entrepreneur is going to learn things on his/her

own. In the article Sean said, ​"When these incredible tools of knowledge and learning are

available to the whole world, formal education becomes less and less important. We should

expect to see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneur who has acquired most of their

knowledge through self-exploration.” This shows that people don't necessarily have to attend

college to be successful they could just grab their computer and get to work, which could be an

easier way for some people.

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Out of the 400 richest people in the U.S, 63 entrepreneurs do not have a college diploma.

That’s 15% of the list. With total U.S student debt over one trillion, young entrepreneurs may

think skipping college is the best option. There have been many successful entrepreneurs who

skipped college and learned on their own by learning to ‘Business Titans’ and self exploration.

This is important because more and more people are not going to college to learn on their own.

This means there will be more failed businesses, since it is a huge risk to do things on your own.

While in college take risks. Mark Zuckerberg took a huge risk with Facebook, and if it

failed he could’ve just returned to college. He said “I could have gone back to Harvard anytime.

My friends might not be there anymore. I might have to start over socially. That was a risk. But it

was a pretty small risk compared to the opportunity at the time." So, as a entrepreneur you have

to be prepared to take risks, the thing about risks is you can either have a lot of success or you

could fail miserably. As an entrepreneur you need to be prepared to fail over and over. John Paul

DeJoria, Cofounder of Paul Mitchell, said, "I learned sales and marketing from knocking on a

hundred doors a day. You quickly discover that you'll get 99 slammed in your face before you

make a sale." This is important to know because young entrepreneurs are going to get

discouraged when they fail for the first time. They will have to learn to overcome adversity.

Find something you love and make it a business. I know that’s easier said than done, but

if you’re really passionate about something why not make a living out of it. Obviously, there are

a lot of things you can’t do. For example, you can’t make a business off of sleeping if you love

it, that’s just not going to work. Everyone dreams of doing something they love and making a

living off of it, so why doesn’t everyone do that? Because it is extremely hard to start a business.

This can discourage someone or even make them rethink their career choice. The idea of
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Entrepreneurship and owning your own business is growing and becoming more and more

popular. A lot of new “entrepreneurs” end up quitting or changing their career in the first 5

years.

Starting a business is a leap of faith. In an article talking about how Jon Duval, former

director of the Ketchum Community Development Corp., created his business, he said, “It’s a

leap of faith to do things on your own without a doubt.” He later stated, “For me, I thought

about it for awhile and it’s definitely scary, having to bite the bullet and say, “I’m going for it.”

He loved travelling and made a business off of it. It wasn’t an easy decision and it was scary but

it was a leap of faith. For him, it was an opportunity to do what he loved as a business. Young

entrepreneurs can learn to do what he did and make their passion into a career.

One thing you can learn from Jon and other entrepreneurs like him is to get help from

business start up companies and other business owners. Jon helped other businesses get started

and ended up wanting to start his own and had the tools to succeed. A lot of successful

entrepreneurs learned from other successful entrepreneurs. That’s why a lot of new entrepreneurs

skip college and use tools that are available to everyone. People can research entrepreneurship

and learn to get where others are today. This eliminates the need to go to college, by learning

from other successful people.

Most entrepreneurs start multiple businesses before they are successful. In the article

‘Dreamers become doers’ they took data from the Inc. 500 Entrepreneurs, which is the top 500

entrepreneurs in the world. They asked each of them multiple questions and one of the questions

was is this the first company you’ve started? 68% of the 500 said no, which is a crazy amount.

The majority of the top 500 entrepreneurs in the world have failed with their first or first few
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businesses. This can comfort struggling businesses owners if their business is failing. 43% of

these successful entrepreneurs biggest concern was the fear of failure.

Another big concern when starting a business is money, and starting a business isn’t

cheap. 48% started their first business with less than $5000 which I did not expect. 78% used

their own personal savings. A lot of businesses start from low budget start ups and grow to

something huge. The majority of CEOs focus on finding talented and committed employees

when growing their businesses. You can’t do it all by yourself so finding the right people to help

build your business from the ground up is very important.

In this day and age everything is technology driven. So it is vital for you to use it in ways

that will benefit you, and your business. There are so many ways to get your business out there

using technology, whether it be social media, ads on a website, commercials, the possibilities are

endless. You can also answer any questions you have and learn from other businessmen. You

see more and more entrepreneurs who build their brand using Instagram, Twitter, and other

forms of social media. This is very important in the business world, most of the time the only

way I see a product of a company or hear of a company is through my social media.

Make personal growth and always set and achieve goals. A huge thing you need to do to

be successful in anything is to believe in yourself. The mind is a powerful thing and anything

you set it to you can achieve it. As an entrepreneur, you need to make personal growth and

always learn new things. It is very important to set goals and create a roadmap on how you're

going to achieve those goals.

Make networks with other businessmen. No successful businessmen has never made a

partnership with other companies. Always continue to learn. Every entrepreneur will tell you to
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learn everyday. A great way to learn is through connections and networks, you can learn what

works for them and what they did to gain an edge on competitors. Companies make partnerships

all the time, whether it be to increase profit or other reasons. Making connections can also get

you investors to help your cause, there is nothing but pros when it comes to networking and

connections with others.

In conclusion, after doing more research on my desired career field, I just want to be a

entrepreneur more than I did before. I still want to go to college even if less and less people are

going. I’ve learned a lot but I still have a lot of questions and this research helped me a ton, but

there’s only so much research can do until you’ve actually experienced it. I know it’s gonna be a

one man show in the beginning and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m gonna sell/create. To

close, I just want to make a name for myself and make the world a better place.
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Works Cited

Billionaire University.” ​Forbes,​ vol. 189, no. 1, Jan. 2012, p. 19. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=70133940&site=ehost-live.

BROOKS, PAUL. “Starting a Business -- It’s Not for the Faint of Heart.” ​Business Journal

(Central New York),​ vol. 32, no. 46, Nov. 2018, p. 6B. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=133109354&site=ehost-live.

Tenney, Kira. “Starting an Adventure: THE CIRCUITOUS PATH TO CREATING A

BUSINESS.” ​Sun Valley Magazine​, Winter2017/2018 2017, p. 98. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=132806318&site=ehost-live.

“How Dreamers Become Doers.” ​Inc​, vol. 38, no. 7, Sept. 2016, p. 44. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=117282740&site=ehost-live.

Vaynerchuk, Gary. “Blog.” ​GaryVaynerchuk.com,​ www.garyvaynerchuk.com/blog/.